Chlamydiaceae is a family of obligate intracellular parasites. All members share a common developmental cycle. Chlamydia infect a wide range of vertebrate host, particularly humans. Chlamydia trachomitis is one of the two recognized species of Chlamydia. Human infections caused by Chlamydia trachomitis are widespread. This species is one of the most common cause of sexually transmitted disease in the world. It is also one of the main causes of infertility in humans.
The frequency of Chlamydia trachomatis infections has risen dramatically in the past 20 years. This has been attributed to the emergence of multiply antibiotic resistant strains and an increasing population of people with weakened immune systems. It is no longer uncommon to isolate Chlamydia trachomatis strains which are resistant to some or all of the standard antibiotics. This has created a demand for both new anti-microbial agents and diagnostic tests for this organism.
The first described gidA gene was that of E. coli (von Meyenburg et al (1980) ICN-UCLA Symp. Mol. Cell. Biol. 19, 137-159; Swissprot accession number P17112). The closest homolog of the Chlamydia trachomitis gidA1 polypeptide is Pseudomonas putida gidA (Ogasawara, N. & Yoshikawa, H. (1992) Mol. Microbiol. 6(5), 629-634; Swissprot accession number P25756 ). The closest homolog of the Chlamydia trachomitis gidA1 polynucleotide is Borrelia burgdorferi gidA (Old, I.G. et al. (1992) FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 99, 245-250; Genbank accession number Z12160).
Clearly, there is a need for factors, such as the novel compounds of the invention, that have a present benefit of being useful to screen compounds for antibiotic activity. Such factors are also useful to determine their role in pathogenesis of infection, dysfunction and disease. There is also a need for identification and characterization of such factors and their antagonists and agonists which can play a role in preventing, ameliorating or correcting infections, dysfunctions or diseases.
The polypeptides of the invention have amino acid sequence homology to a known Pseudomonas putida gidA protein.